Diffraction of a surface wave on a conducting rectangular wedge

Abstract

Diffraction of a surface wave on a rectangular wedge with impedance faces is studied using the Sommerfeld-Malyuzhinets technique. An analog of Landau's bypass rule in the theory of plasma waves is introduced for selection of a correct branch of the Sommerfeld integral, and the exact solution is given in terms of imaginary error function. The formula derived is valid both in the near-field and far-wave zones. It is shown that a diffracted surface wave is completely scattered into freely propagating electromagnetic waves and neither reflected nor transmitted surface waves are generated in case of bare metals which have positive real part of surface impedance. The scattered waves propagate predominantly at a grazing angle along the direction of propagation of the incident surface wave and mainly in the upper hemisphere regarding the wedge face. The profile of radiated intensity is nonmonotonic and does not resemble the surface wave profile which exponentially evanesces with the distance from the wedge face. Comparison with experiments carried out in the terahertz spectral range at Novosibirsk free electron laser has shown a good agreement of the theory and the experiments.